Signs you may be a ‘normalizer’

Normalizing oppression has always been one of the tools used by the colonizer against the resistance of the oppressed and colonized. It is cheap and it works! It turns native against native, and all the oppressor does is sit and watch. Britain, France, America, Apartheid South Africa, are just a few of the colonizers who used it as a tool of dominance: they privileged one sector of the colonized population, by offering them some crumbs of the master’s table, which then made them willing propagandists who sang the praises of, and “justified” colonization and its mission civilisatrice.

Apartheid Israel does exactly the same.

With unending aid from the United States of America, a settler-colony itself, Israel has been able to dispossess the Palestinian people, while portraying itself as a “modern,” western country surrounded by Arab and Muslim savages who it oppresses as a favor to protect western interests in the Middle East. And there is no shortage of “civilized” Palestinian natives, janissaries, “house niggers” who understand and can “justify “Israel’s role. It is only these natives who can appreciate its modernity, “democracy,” and– most importantly—its generosity in granting them some of their rights.

Therefore, the hasbara machine is able to create two categories of Palestinians/Arabs; the grateful and the ungrateful! There are the Uncle Toms, the grateful, “the good Arab,” whose ultimate goal is to appease the Israeli master, or those who support him, i.e., western powers. Those natives, called “sell outs” by their people, are not inherent normalizers, but they begin to start showing symptoms of being so, while vehemently denying that they are normalizers of oppression, apartheid, and colonization. I am thinking here of Sadat of Egypt, Qatari officials who regularly visit Israel, Saudi Emirs who don’t shy away from meeting and even taking selfies with Israeli war criminals. I am also thinking here of Palestinian officials who defend the grotesque “security coordination” with Israel, those who believe that “life is all about negotiation,” notwithstanding the fact that Zionism is an ethno-religious ideology rooted in aggressive exclusion of others, including “good Arabs!” But the list also includes those artists, civil society organizations, and some academics who normalize for very selfish reasons, namely, to boost their careers and, subsequently, get even more wealth!

Ironically enough, there are those who normalize but claim not to know what normalization is all about, nor have any knowledge of the agreed upon definition of the term, in spite of the fact that it has been in the media and online since 2007. Normalization in a Palestinian/Arab context is defined “as the participation in any project, initiative or activity, in Palestine or internationally, that aims (implicitly or explicitly) to bring together Palestinians (and/or Arabs) and Israelis (people or institutions) without placing as its goal resistance to and exposure of the Israeli occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression against the Palestinian people.”

In spite of the near consensus among Palestinians and Arabs on rejecting the treatment of Israel as a “normal” state with which business as usual can be conducted, you still get those argue otherwise!

There are repetitive patterns in the arguments made by normalizers, here are the symptoms of normalization:

1. You start feeling “fed up” with the “conflict” between the “two sides”
2. You start believing that it all began in 1967
3. You start defending the idea of “dialogue” between the “two parties”
4. You blame “extremists” on “both sides,” especially Palestinian “terrorists”
5. You keep repeating: “both parties are to blame for the ongoing bloodshed”
6. You keep saying/parroting: “both peoples are suffering and this has to come to an end”
7. You become more pragmatic about the right of return which becomes “impossible to implement”
8. You start thinking that the best way to resolve the refugees’ dilemma is by finding “an agreed upon” solution
9. “Partition,” for you, becomes THE solution; two states for two peoples based on their ethno-religious backgrounds; 77 per cent of Palestine for Israeli Jews, and the rest is negotiable.
10. You start getting the attention of CNN, BBC, possibly Fox News, NY Times, the Washington Post.

As much as the South African Apartheid regime tried to normalize racism and tried to justify it, the world stood up against it by heeding the call made by native South Africans and their allies. We are, slowly but surely, approaching that moment when Israel’s occupation, colonization, and apartheid in Palestine will be treated as abnormalities that should be isolated, regardless of attempts made by very few Arab janissaries!

About Haidar Eid

Haidar Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. He has published papers on cultural Studies and literature in a number of journals, including Nebula, Journal of American Studies in Turkey, Cultural Logic, and the Journal of Comparative Literature.

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93 Responses

I could easily lose that expression. You must see how pejorative toward the African-American it is. Are you saying that African-American who were ordered to work in the house, were incapable of looking beyond themselves, and inevitably ape the snobbery and racism of their owners?
Can you give me any good reason to use an expression which contains the word “niggers” in the first place? Go look at your link, none of the quotes refer to that expression.

MOOSER- “Are you saying that African-American who were ordered to work in the house, were incapable of looking beyond themselves, and inevitably ape the snobbery and racism of their owners?”

The term “House Negro” is a well known term used by Malcom X to make a point. And yes, the term “House Nigger” does appear in the linked article (see quote below).

“House Negro” (also “House Nigger”)….The term was used in the speech “Message to the Grass Roots” (1963) by African-American activist Malcolm X, wherein he explains that during slavery, there were two kinds of slaves: “house Negroes”, who worked in the master’s house, and “field Negroes”, who performed the manual labor outside. He characterizes the house Negro as having a better life than the field Negro, and thus being unwilling to leave the plantation and potentially more likely to support existing power structures that favor whites over blacks. Malcolm X identified with the field Negro.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Negro

Oh, it was just a suggestion. I thought the expression is in very bad taste. And could be easily eliminated, without harming the article. But if it is that important to you to normalize the word “n—-r”. I can’t stop you.

MOOSER- “But if it is that important to you to normalize the word “n—-r”. I can’t stop you.”

Why do you feel the need to misrepresent my intent? Just as your over-the-top defense of political correctness caused you to misrepresent the author’s intent, going so far as to falsely claim that “house nigger” didn’t even appear in his link?

Nah, what I’d rather see is you, using, and then explaining the phrase to Malcom X.
That might be fun to see. Be sure to include your thoughts on “political correctness” as it relates to using the term. Gosh, “Keith” too bad you waited til Malcom X is dead for some time. Your thoughts on slave-slave relationships in the Ante-Bellum South would straighten Malcom right out.

OLD GEEZER- “To suggest that the objecting to the use of words that are extremely perjorative as over the top is over the top in itself.”

If the author had used the original term “House Negro” instead of the street version “House Nigger,” would that have been acceptable to you? To Mooser? Help me out here, I am a radical trying to comprehend the liberal mindset.

In the article dealing with Palestinian compradors and satraps whose service to Israel and empire normalizes the occupation and makes it viable, the author makes one reference to “House Niggers,” which he links to the Wikipedia definition which begins “House Negro” (also “House Nigger”)”. He uses the term one time in reference to Malcolm X’s definition of the “House Negro” as a defender of the status quo. How dare he!

I thought that Mooser’s comment was excessively critical under the circumstances and that he didn’t understand the reference. The words he put in the author’s mouth totally misrepresented the historical basis of the term. He further claimed that “House Nigger” didn’t appear in the link, which it did, but he refuses to admit his mistake or his misrepresentation of the author’s use of the term. Further, his narrow focus on this one use of the term detracts from the overall intent of the article. And when I provide the historical background, he doubles down claiming that I am trying to “normalize” the word “nigger.” This is your idea of fair and balanced?

I think a larger issue is to what extent does a Black Radical like Malcolm X or a Palestinian academic like Professor Haidar Eid have to tailor their comments to make them acceptable to you and Mooser? Living and working in Gaza isn’t burden enough, he has to have Mooser misrepresent him and them overly criticize the misrepresentation? Perhaps your liberal sensibilities need to make some allowances. Let us not be overly concerned if righteous anger occasionally leads to offensive (to some) phraseology.

MOOSER- “Nah, what I’d rather see is you, using, and then explaining the phrase to Malcom X.”

You have got it backwards, it is you objecting to Malcom’s use of the term, not me. You explain to him that you find his radical critique offensive. His language offensive. Who does he think he is anyway! Black folks should ignore Malcolm and seek advice from Mooser! And not just Malcolm X, but that know nothing Palestinian academic Professor Haidar Eid. He didn’t need to write so offensively. Better he should have submitted his article to you for approval. One use of a term you obviously didn’t understand and find offensive. It doesn’t take much does it? Apparently, it is critically important to have you protect Blacks and Palestinians from from the offensive words of Blacks and Palestinians.

How about your mindset? When are you going to acknowledge that your statement in regards to the term “House Nigger,” “Go look at your link, none of the quotes refer to that expression.” is factually incorrect? Were you aware of the historic basis of the term? Other than the use of that one particular expression just one time, what do you disagree with? Your anti-Trump hysteria has muddled your thought processes, even going so far as to falsely claim that I am a Trump supporter. My only real hope for Trump is that he will be less of a warmonger than Hillary, and hopefully, a much less effective imperial President than Obama was.

This author is the other side of the mirror from a don trump. The same but obverse. Just a different set of tyrannical , spiteful and ridiculously broad as well as ignorant opinions that can easily rile a crowd of stupid people. the entire history of the earth is comprised of one group ‘colonizing’ another and the Arabs did their own fair share of colonizing, slave trading and subjugation that it’s difficult to read an article like his without the normalizing laughter it so merits.

WW1 led directly to WW2 in Europe; how many died in the latter, 50 million? Then came the legal principles ex post facto for which state leaders were hung at Nuremberg/Toyko Trials & their Geneva IV progeny. Thus, what was done historically prior thereto, is no longer justification–DaBakr apparently never got the memo. Neither has Israel’s leadership, nor its enabler, USA’s leadership.
In fact, commencing with the Neocon attack on Iraq, the US has been copying rogue Israel, both in foreign policy & domestic policy in terms of police power.

Further, USA was 2nd to last to drop apartheid S Africa, Israel was last.

Your view of history and it’s importance and relevance to the world at large is small minded and narrowly focused on the century(that still hasn’t passed yet) since the end of WW2. In light of this I can understand your support for the author of this op-ed piece.

The entirety of human history is filled with genocide as well. Whether pre bibical times or post.

It takes a vile and worthless piece of flotsam such as yourself to normalize the holocaust. But zionists have a long and indisputable history of throwing Jewish people under the bus. Even when ignoring they were also the one driving the bus!

The hard part is inunderstanding how you can be so deluded and blind to the evil that you support and perpetrate.

What goes around comes around. Whether it is on a small scale such as Israeli you being killed while murdering innocents or on a larger scale. As mooser says the two billion adherents will protect you. Not.

Please consider well before you say that “oldgeezer”. 2 billion is an awful lot of people.
Do you really think 2 billion Zionist Jews can’t pull it off?. Frankly, I think a 180 million could do it! Hell, do it with their eyes shut!

What admirable crocodile tears you shed for people you think trivialize or normalize the holocaust. All of your ‘moral beacons’ are so pure. The fact still remains that the world has been, and will continue to be shaped by one form of colonizing or another. But first you admirable folks have to tear down Israel before you can focus on anything else. I think you all should be called the ‘israel firsters’

According to White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks, the statement made no mentions of Jews out of respect for the non-Jews who died in Nazi labor camps and death camps during World War II. Hicks told CNN: “Despite what the media reports, we are an incredibly inclusive group and we took into account all of those who suffered.”

you can respect non jews who died in the holocaust by simply mentioning them too. instead, they were “inclusive” by — mentioning neither?

It is you that trivialize crimes against humanity including events such as the holocaust. Yoy won’t find anywhere I’ve pretended to shed tears over you or your fellow travellers. Such a lack of morality, while not unique, is a blight upon humanity.

Some of us would like the world to progress into and more humane and peaceful state. Zionists want to drag us back thousands of years. I have no converns about my choice. Perhaps you don’t have any about yours. Sadly for you we have a series of laws that you would need to undo. Including the laws that defined nazi actions as illegal. Good luck with attemtping to undo those. I think you will find yourself quickly sidelined just for the effort.

Hey, like I always say, the present effects the past more than the past effects the present. And if there is going to be more emphasis on the rest of the people who died (an awful lot, millions) in the Holocaust, and less on the genocide of the Jews, Bannon and Miller are just the guys to handle that transition in a scholarly and respectful fashion. They could change the entire perspective on the event.

But if I was too harsh, I apologize. I know the facts are hard to ascertain.

It is hard to type copy paste on my phone. I agree you can honour other groups by mentioning them as well and not by omitting Jewish victims.

It is the trump era in the US. Is anyone shocked? Will zionists abandon him? I doubt it. Where is Jared?

At the same time it is easy for me to turn a cold shoulder to a large number of these complaints depending on how they are phrased. Where are the complaints that trump omitted a number (big or small) of groups in the comments.

What trump did is awful. What some of the complainers seek is also awful.

i wasn’t all up in arms about the original WH statement — not really my neck of the woods. but i think we have come to expect a degree of professionalism in our official protocol wrt WH/presidential statements. so issuing a second statement saying they purposely chose not to mention jews wrt the holocaust seemed particularly harsh. they could have simply stated ‘we chose to address all human suffering and had no intent of offending the jewish community who of course suffered greatly’ or something like that. but the ‘not mentioning Jews out of respect for non-Jews’ line just seems utterly jarring in it’s lack of diplomacy/sensitivity, definitely not presidential. kind of a jab in the eye intended to aggravate.

if his intention is to offend the jewish community or put them in their place or something, he shouldn’t use the holocaust to do it. there are plenty of other ways.

“like i said, there’s no need to mention jews “less” to acknowledge the other people who died.”

Gee, what on earth is there about the particular role of the Jews as victims of the Holocaust which might make Bannon avoid it? I sure can’t see what it would be! (other than to bring more deserved awareness to the other victims, who numbered in the aggregate just as many if not more than Jews alone)
Or maybe there is something about the process by which the German and Occupied Country Jews became Holocaust victims he finds problematic, and would rather not be reminded of? Or would like to “normalize”.

“edit, and i didn’t mean you were harsh mooser,”

Thanks, “Annie”. I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. I was worried.
Where I come from “harsh” is a strong condemnation, almost a bud libel.

IDK. What about them. Where were they during the Arab conquest. In sure you and your pals here will come up with an elongated answer both semantically twisted and stamped with the approval of the far left and UN post ww2 revisionist narrative which has determined that most if not all of the Jewish narrative from Israel is a lie and everything the UN resolves against Israel is truth. I can’t wait to be persuaded buy the convincing and profound argumentation here.

“In sure you and your pals here will come up with an elongated answer both semantically twisted and stamped with the approval of the far left and UN post ww2 revisionist narrative which has determined that most if not all of the Jewish narrative from Israel is a lie and everything the UN resolves against Israel is truth.”

Zionists point back to the cave man era to justify what they do. That’s their light to the world. Hitler & his Nazis did the same thing; both idolize bloody nature in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest. I notice the Zionists never point to the modern Scandinavian countries to justify what they do.

It’s not particularly refreshing to see that commenters here continue to put words in other people’s mouths but I guess that’s just how you moral beaconeers roll. Fyi, I never said or wrote “everyone does evil” . You said that.

Not you didn’t say that everyone does evil. You said that history is all about commiting what we now consider crimes against humanity. So get over it when Israel does it. It is the way things work.

You ha e merely tried to normalize crimes and inhumanity. As i pointed out history is replete with genocide so your line of logic normalizes the holocaust. Something you and your fellow travellers will stand alone in doing. Well you and the aryan nations.

Evil is evil. The norms of 2000 years ago do not apply
No one wants them to apply except for zionists and then only for their cause.

The Zionist “history is full of brutality” argument works both ways. It presumably means that as soon as the IDF is defeated Yossi Israeli and the rest of the Israelis can be herded into Gaza and bombed with white phosphorous until they calm down and agree to be tortured as required.

|| Maghlawatan: The Zionist “history is full of brutality” argument works both ways. … ||

In the Zionist mind, it only works one way: Jews are entitled to do unto others acts of injustice and immorality they would not have others do unto them.

Zionists are hateful and immoral fools for deliberately and unapologetically undermining human rights and international laws and the protections they are meant to afford all people. I simply cannot comprehend why Zionists hate Jews so much.

“If not to point out the evils committed by others, then why bring this up?”

“Diasp0ra”, this is “dabakr’s” way of giving us a subtle warning.
He warns us that the world has always been full of colonizing and subjugating.

So you gotta ask yourself: “What if all of TWO BILLION Jews decided to do some colonizing and subjugating, could the world resist the onslaught?”
And the answer is obvious.
If all or even most of two billion Jews devote themselves to Zionism, it would be an irresistible political and military force.
I think a word to the wise should be sufficient, and Dabakr is supplying it.

Professor Finkelstein…”In Nazi occupied Europe most of the populations made the choice to live under the Nazis, all this talk about a French resistance is just a joke, it never happened about 20% of the French population read the resistances newspaper, there were maybe 10% of the French who resisted, the rest said don’t resist because the Nazis were ruthless. You resist, four hundred are killed for each soldier who is killed, that’s how the Nazis operated, so most of the French said “we want to live” don’t resist. In retrospect who do we honor, those who say “we want to live” or those who say “let’s resist”? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe65-nF3FQ

Compare Christopher Neumaier in the Journal of Contemporary History 06, responding in part to Robert Gildea’s book ‘Marianne in Chains’, on the development of German reprisals policy. I think maybe Norman is stripping too much guilt off the French lily. No one now denies that only a small minority resisted, but small, even Norman’s 10%, isn’t the same as negligible. The mass reprisals policy was not the simple answer to everything. Many Germans thought it counterproductive – these came to include the SS commandant Carl Oberg who tried to restrict it, presumably not out of human sympathy. This means that the resistants did achieve something, weren’t just a joke.

RE: “Normalizing oppression has always been one of the tools used by the colonizer against the resistance of the oppressed and colonized. It is cheap and it works! It turns native against native, and all the oppressor does is sit and watch.” ~ Haidar Eid

“Normalization”: so reasonable, so destructive. Haidar Eid’s list of warning signs embodies the essence of the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. The goal must be to hammer home the truth that Israel is NOT a normal state, that Israel is ineligible for respectful intercourse until it rejects Zionism and fully embraces democracy and human rights.

Yes, the Zionists are very afraid of what they call “the delegitimization” of Israel. Israel has no De Klerke. F.W. de Klerk was president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994, during which time he worked with Nelson Mandela to successfully end the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation. He should be the light to the Zionist Jews, but he’s a goy. The question is, where’s America’s goy De Klerke in US leadership re enabling Israel’s rogue system? Nowhere to be seen. The entire US Establishment is against Trump, but Trump’s no De Klerke. Trump goes to the Zionist twerp Kushner for advice.

Irony always escapes Zionists and their fellow travelers. US leaders brag about their special treatment of Israel, evidenced by (to date) $171 Billion in direct aid (+interest) and 41 UN SC US vetoes immunizing Israel from accountability to world consensual ethics/morality–yet when anybody dares to suggest there’s not only special benefits, but also special duties for Israel, what do they get from the parasite Zionists: whatabotery BS!

It’s what’s know in medicine as “combination therapy”. Deflection doesn’t work on its own; you need at the same time measured intakes of pharmaceutical-grade projection and conflation to maintain the perception that wrong is right, that aggression is self-defence, that gratuitous, psychopathic cruelty is normal and that you’re the victim of any Jew-hater who says otherwise.

A voice of reason in a wilderness of retributive, belligerent negativity, Dajani asserts that the anti-normalization campaign is preventing progress in advancing coexistence and achieving peace.
Anti-normalization “fails to see that the Palestinian cause must be won inside of Israel and that normalization is an essential step in the process to end the conflict. For that to be achieved, Israel and the Palestinians should sit at the negotiation table and, in good faith, reach painful compromises that are agreeable to both sides. This will only happen if the Israeli public is won to the cause of peace. Advancing the anti-normalization campaign only makes this improbable, if not impossible.”

What prevents progress in advancing coexistence and achieving peace is Zionism – the unjust and immoral belief that people who choose to be/come Jewish are entitled:
– to a religion-supremacist “Jewish State” in as much as possible of Palestine; and
– to do unto others acts of injustice and immorality they would not have others do unto them.

No-one should be expected or required to accept or validate the past and on-going evils of Zionism.

he says things like “normalization is an essential step in the process to end the conflict.” normalizing apartheid and occupation is not part of the process to end the occupation. palestinians joined these groups and tried this for decades and the noose kept getting tighter. it didn’t work.

he says things like “These activists demand severing all contact between Palestinians and Israelis” which is not true and contradicts the very definition he himself cited at the beginning of his essay.

@Annie, so activists demanding to sever all contact between Palestinians and Israelis is note – not according to this comprehensive article titled ‘The anti-Israel movement’s ‘anti-normalization’ campaign’.
I tried to comment about Eljay’s particular gripe with Zionism and immediately I detect a raw nerve when my remarks were censored – a couple of times. It seems that lauding Zionism, whilst condemning Islam is verboten. Can’t have one of MW’s favorite Israel bashers being slagged!

“It presumably means that as soon as the IDF is defeated Yossi Israeli…” Mag
I don’t see how a nuclear power can be “defeated”, as in the opposing troops march on the capital and demand concessions. It is a different paradigm, in which at most, both sides lose everything. Israel would not allow foreign troops in its capital. Even if you exclude nuclear weapons, it has enough conventional weaponry to simply destroy all of the capitals of its enemies. Perhaps BDS is the only way. However, you have to do it in a way that does not harm irreparably the Palestinians.

“Even if you exclude nuclear weapons, it (Israel) has enough conventional weaponry to simply destroy all of the capitals of its enemies”

ROTFLMSJAO! And with 2 billion Jews to absorb what ever blow falls in response, we can take the hit and keep on going. And all the Jews in other countries aren’t hostages now, either. (And of course, all those Jews must do what Israel tells them., too)

Face it “catalan” just the sheer number of Jews makes it obvious we are going to win anything. and everything. Israel doesn’t have to start a major war, and won’t. Everybody knows there’s just too many of us.

|| Mooser: … ROTFLMSJAO! And with 2 billion Jews to absorb what ever blow falls in response, we can take the hit and keep on going. And all the Jews in other countries aren’t hostages now, either. … ||

Zionists are well-prepared for blowback.

First, there’s Plan A: Smugly tell the world that Jews are entitled to do unto others acts of injustice and immorality they would not have others do unto them, so the world can f*ck right off.

Should Plan A fail, they can count on Plan B: Point the finger at other Jews, shout “That one there, he’s a Jew! Get him!!” and run away.

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